In a world of amorphous and unpredictable security challenges, military operations will increasingly be carried out by "coalitions of the willing" assembled on an ad hoc basis. The EU, however, lacks the necessary flexibility. After years of theological wrangling, it has conspicuously failed to come up with an effective mechanism to enable a small group of member states to act without the others. Moreover, the EU has never been good at involving non-members in its work. The exclusion of Russia and Turkey does not bode well when the most likely area of instability, and hence western intervention, is the Middle East and adjoining regions.

Even if the EU had enough hardware and personnel its member states could never agree to use it for anything.